Massive urban development and an increase in the number of vehicles on road ways have reduced the availability of parking making it a scarce resource in many localities such as, but not limited to, cities, towns, metropolises, boroughs, neighborhoods villages or municipalities. This growing problem results in a huge imbalance between the supply of parking spaces readily available and the demand, particularly during peak travel times daily and/or seasonally.
In view of reduced availability of parking, drivers often end up stressing themselves out while searching for an available parking spot after using a navigation device and/or some type of navigation service to reach a destination point of interest especially for those drivers who are not familiar with a locality/area. In fact, drivers circling endlessly to find a vacant parking spot can be linked to many prominent problems generated in cities that negatively affect the quality of urban life which directly contributes to traffic congestion, pollution, increased driving hazards (both for other drivers and for pedestrians), and a reduction of public space.
To alleviate the arduous task of locating a parking-spot, some parking facilities advantageously provide visual indicators to show that there are parking spots readily available at their facilities. These facilities may include, but are not limited to, parking garages, parking lots and/or other types of parking facilities. However, these designated available parking-spot locations shown by beneficial visual indicators are typically not within the view of drivers who may be only a block away from the available parking facility or parking spot.
There are various application programs provided by businesses in the travel and/or transportation industry, technology industry, or service and luxury industry for communication devices that provide drivers or taxi and limousine services with directions to specific destination points of interest via application programs and/or navigational technologies. However, these communication devices do not include application programs that provide information about available parking-spots or facilities located within a preselect radius of a driver's destination point of interest or within the geographic earth location of the driver. These communication devices, including their application programs, are often not configured to locate available parking-spots during or prior to the driver traversing to a specific destination point of interest.
Enhancing the utilization and management of parking spaces available provides benefits and conveniences to both individuals such as, but not limited to, drivers and pedestrians and cities. Drivers would benefit from the implementation of a method and system for managing and reporting of available parking-spots because this would allow drivers to navigate through a locality/area more efficiently if they had access to a suitably configured application program on their mobiles devices for locating available parking-spots.
Another problem that consumers generally encounter with communication devices having application programs that provide transportation/taxi services is that these devices are not configured to allow the consumer to monitor and/or determine if it is safe or not to use the services of a taxi provider (e.g., UBER or LYFT or MOOVN app). Namely, consumers are not able to obtain beneficial information in real time to determine if a potential transportation/taxi driver is under the influence of controlled substances/drugs and/or alcohol. Similarly, transportation/taxi service providers currently do not have a means of monitoring the sobriety of its drivers while they are out in the field providing rides (i.e., taxi services) to consumers.
In light of the shortcomings in the prior art, there is clearly a need for the development and implementation of a method and system that allows drivers locate available parking-spots during or prior to the driver traversing to a destination point of interest, and there is also a clear need for a method and system that allows consumers and/or transportation providers to monitor and determine the sobriety of transportation/taxi drivers. Accordingly, the present invention fulfills these long-standing needs and desires in the art.